Author | Mother | Wife | Sandwich

Category Archives: Writing

Nothing spells writing success like routine. At least when it comes to the only part authors have any real control over: the writing itself.

Over the past week or so I’ve been in search of my self-discipline. And I think I found it, somewhere at the back of my brain and slightly to the left, among the mismatched and dirty socks. I’m now dedicating several hours each weekday to working on my new story. The word count goal is loose; I’m satisfied with anything from 500 to 1000 words per day.

Typically, I’ve done all my creative writing at the desktop in my home office. But when I lost my job — and my company laptop — I bought a personal laptop. Now I’m donning my metaphorical writing hat and becoming a writer-in-a-coffee-shop cliché. If it was good enough for J.K. Rowling, it’s good enough for me.

My walk to the coffee shop.

The local coffee emporium, which shall remain nameless but it charges extortionate prices and rhymes with Fartruck’s, is a 20-minute walk. The walk alone is worth it. Behind my house is the world’s largest publicly owned greenbelt: 200 square kilometres of protected forest full of trees, walking paths, and every creature this area has to offer, from wild turkeys, rabbits and skunks to coyotes, deer and porcupines. In the middle of a weekday afternoon, heading down the main gravel path, which was once a railway line, is downright tranquil. Fresh air, exercise and the space and silence to think about my characters and their world. Perfect.

Once at the coffee shop, a trusty vanilla latte by my side, I fire up my laptop and log onto the rather excellent Wi-Fi.

In an interesting, perhaps even prophetic, turn of events, I don’t have access to social media on my laptop. Right around the time I bought it, my Instagram account got hacked. How do I know? A friend texted me, and then my 19-year-old son came thundering up from the basement wondering why I’d just posted five photos of women wearing nothing more than three leather belts and a smile. Yikes!!

Immediately, I called my IT department/husband, which got to work trying to fix the issue. Before I could say son, I’ve been hacked, my husband had changed the password on every one of my social media accounts, including my email. The passwords he chose are 20 characters long and include a capital letter, a symbol, a punctuation mark, a sonnet and my left kidney. I keyed these all into my iPhone and my desktop but not my laptop, purely out of laziness. But now I’m finding this is really helping my word count. I can’t open any social media on my computer while I’m working on my novel at the Fartruck’s.

On fair days, I walk; on rainy days, I drive; on lazy days, I go upstairs to my home office. But every day I write. Some days are more productive than others, of course, but this new routine of mine ensures progress is being made, and that’s what counts.